Chapter 1

There is something so important to the learning of Mathematics that was just skimmed over in Chapter One. The 'Connections Standard' in the Five Process Standards from the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics released by the NCTM mentioned it, but did not give it the emphasis it deserved. Chapter One emphasized so weightily on the message of how Math should be taught, but it missed out on the plainest fact that children should be told why and how the Math concepts they learn are applicable in their daily lives (outside Math class), besides in those dreaded exams! 

Throughout Primary and Secondary school, I went through the motion of Math lessons meaninglessly and unwillingly. It was all about grades in my sad learning experience; that was the central focus of math mastery back then. That is why even though I learnt addition, subtraction, etc. and used it in daily life, I never appreciated it. Why did I need to speed-recite the times-tables?? Because if not, I would suffer for it because it’s something I need to have at my fingertips for the EXAMS. Damn those exams! As a result, my mind auto-deleted most of what I learnt right after I regurgitated the information for the exams. My brain hated having to store all of this useless, meaningless information that had no context to them!

I learnt later in life that physicians and engineers and accountants were using all the math formulas that they learnt in school in their lines of work, and that this was the very end of Math education- to prepare us for the ultimate goal of being savvy, productive and successful at work. Well, why didn’t my teachers tell me so in the first place?? “Children, learning to calculate area and perimeter and geometry will be very useful information that you will be using every single day if you want to become an architect or an interior designer in the future because you will need to calculate angles, areas of space, make measurements and decide what can fit into a floor plan and how much space you can allot to your ideas and fixtures to make the space liveable.” And maybe, my teacher could also have obtained a floor plan to show us, just to make the lesson a more holistic experience! I would have been so much more receptive, had she presented the information to us in this fashion.

It will suffice to say: the usefulness, the practical application of, and the purpose of Math were never explained to me, and this resulted in my negative attitude towards the subject.

Children need to understand why they are learning addition, subtraction, multiplication- Math concepts-  and how having these mathematical skills will be useful to them everyday, other than in bringing them to university, helping them be successful in life.. blah blah blah. Honestly speaking, an elementary-aged child is not interested or motivated in the least bit by such profound reasoning. It is simply too far-fetched for their yet playful and carefree minds to comprehend! We learn in early childhood education that children learn most effectively when what they are taught is presented to them in a meaningful context, ideally one that they can relate to in their daily encounters and which they can apply in their daily activities. For instance, children need to know that learning addition can help them calculate how much a bowl of fishball noodles and two extra meatballs will cost altogether and how much to pay the stall vendor while ordering food during recess time. Or, that if one exercise book costs 30 cents, the cost of 10 exercise books that they need to order for a new school year can be easily calculated by multiplying 10 by 30cents. Here are some other examples of everyday uses for Math that children can learn about:

Making measurements and estimates during food preparation

Calculating allowances

Making cost and quantity choices at the  supermarket

Charting their own growth

      

 Sorting out birthday goody-bags for friends

It is very important that parents as well as teachers involve children in common, every-day activities and problems that require mathematical concepts to carry out and solve, e.g. calculating costs, allowances, budgets etc., because then, children will realise that the math they are being taught in school isn’t just an hour of agony each day that they are subjected to for who-knows-what reason, but that math is useful to them in their daily lives and in all sorts of real-world situations that they are a part of. This way, Math becomes really meaningful and useful, and when this realization occurs, children naturally open their minds to it and become receptive to the concepts taught.

In preschool education where an integrated curriculum and holistic learning is the way to go, this means that teachers need to  weave math concepts into Science, Art, Music and Movement, the outdoors, etc.
Now, this whole 'make math meaningful' scheme may mean calling for more effort, creativity and work from teachers, but hey, if "learn[ing] mathematics with understanding, actively building new knowledge from experience and prior knowledge" (NCTM, 2000, p.20) is the ultimate goal of math education, then oughtn't we exert our efforts to realize that?